religious groups with which Latinos identify. In other words,leaders of organized labor often support a political agendawhich conflicts with the family values of most Latinos.Finally, the author suggests that the Mondragón CooperativeCorporation (Spain) might well serve as an effective modelfor labor-management relations. In sum, this book provides auseful overview of an important and frequently overlookedaspect of the US Hispanic community.

John T. FordThe Catholic University of America

South AsiaMAGICAL PROGENY, MODERN TECHNOLOGY: AHINDU BIOETHICS OF ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVETECHNOLOGY. By Swasti Bhattacharyya. 2006. Albany:State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. x + 161. Cloth,$68.50; paper, $22.95.

In this resourceful and carefully argued book, Bhatta-charyya examines stories about reproduction in theMahabharata and selected other Sanskrit texts to demon-strate that lessons in Hinduism’s literary past can be helpfulto dialogs about reproduction in biomedicine today. What ismore, she argues that similarities in reproductive technolo-gies in Hindu literature and current biomedical practices inEurope and America illustrate the importance of literacy ofthe world’s religions (aka “cultural competence”) among bio-medical practitioners and bioethicists. Working at the theo-retical level, Bhattacharyya explores the basic tenets ofclassical Hindu ethics, which she divides into six categories:1) societal good, 2) unity of life, 3) dharma, 4) diversity ofHindu traditions, 5) karma, and 6) ahimsa

�. With these catego-

ries in hand, and by drawing on current narrative theory andcomparisons with stories from Judaism and Catholicism, shethen analyzes a few well-known stories of assisted reproduc-tive technology in the Mahabharata (e.g., the conception andpregnancy narratives of Kuntı, Gandharı, and Madrı). In thelast portion of the book, Bhattacharyya asserts the appliedvalue of Hindu ethics (chiefly the ethical category of dharma)for sifting through modern bioethical issues. To this end, shelooks at the late-1990s surrogacy and parentage legal case ofJaycee Buzzanca in Orange County, CA. Bhattacharyya’swriting style is straightforward and engaging. Her swift andeven-handed review of bioethics as an academic disciplineand thorough rehearsals of reproductive narratives in theMahabharata make this book a fresh addition to the study ofmedicine in Indian history and a terrific South Asian-basedtext for college courses on cross-cultural bioethics.

Anthony CerulliHobart and William Smith Colleges

THE LIVES OF SRI AUROBINDO. By Paul Heehs. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2008. Pp. 261; illustra-tions. $45.00.

Despite his massive political and spiritual influence, thetwentieth century Indian revolutionary turned mystic Sri

Aurobindo Ghose has been curiously neglected in Westernscholarship. Heehs, one of the founders of the AurobindoAshram Archives, corrects this by producing what is certainto become Aurobindo’s definitive biography. Aptly plural-ized, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo recovers Aurobindo as ascholar, politician, revolutionary, poet, philosopher and sageby helpfully dividing the major periods of his life from hischildhood in India and England to his final years as reclusivespiritual guru with the equally enigmatic Mother at theirAuroville ashram. While certainly rewarding, wadingthrough Aurobindo’s prolific writings can be a dauntingtask. Heehs, therefore, has done us a great service by orga-nizing vast amounts of primary and secondary sources,including Aurobindo’s own diaries and unpublished letters,to produce a compelling biography that intelligently dis-cusses the main themes of Aurobindo’s epic political, liter-ary, and metaphysical canon. He is also to be congratulatedfor resisting the tendency to mythologize and perpetuate theromantic mystification of earlier hagiographies. Althoughclearly persuaded by Aurobindo’s spiritual weight and meta-physical vision, Heehs doesn’t avoid less flattering issuessuch as Aurobindo’s early commitment to political violenceand the neglect of his wife. The result is a clear and detailedpicture of a fascinating figure whose continuing religiousrelevance can be seen in the contemporary popularity ofmany of his pioneering East-West teachings: the evolution ofconsciousness, an integral approach to spiritual liberationand a socially engaged this-worldly mysticism. Particularlyrecommended for those interested in the religious, culturaland political landscape of twentieth-century India.

Ann GleigRice University

THE GERMAN GITA: HERMENEUTICS AND DISCI-PLINE IN THE GERMAN RECEPTION OF INDIANTHOUGHT, 1778-1831. By Bradley L. Herling. Studies inPhilosophy, 22. New York: Routledge, 2006. Pp. xi + 358.$80.00.

In this book, Herling brings together the fields of textualhermeneutics and post-orientalist critique in addressing thequestion, “How was the Gıta constituted as an object of Euro-pean knowledge?” His chosen subjects—Herder, the Schlegelbrothers, von Humboldt and Hegel—all fit the Bhagavad Gıtainto their own philosophical and cultural agendas, some-times in astonishingly dismissive and close-minded ways.However, a careful reading of these orientalist texts alsouncovers more productive intellectual tensions than onemight expect. The Gıta in some cases did prove to be a real,resistant, and challenging Other in these figures’ writing,effectively prompting them to revise their stereotypes. Her-ling’s effort to contextualize these thinkers within thehistory of German thought is a solid work of intellectualhistory that calls for further such sensitive research intocross-cultural encounters. A limitation of the book (asHerling himself admits) is that its scope does not permit aconsideration of the reception of this German scholarship on

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the Gıta in South Asia itself. This book would be appropriatefor graduate students in philosophy, religious studies, Euro-pean history, and, to a slightly lesser extent, South Asianstudies.

Jon KeuneColumbia University

AN ORNAMENT FOR JEWELS: LOVE POEMS FORTHE LORD OF GODS BY VEDANTADESIKA. BySteven P. Hopkins. New York: Oxford University Press,2007. Pp. xviii + 181. Cloth, $99.00; paper, $29.95.

Dedicating this book to A. K. Ramanujan, Hopkinsrightly connects himself with the tradition of the poet-translator able to render Indian poetry most attractively andeffectively in English. As in his 2002 Singing the Body of God,Hopkins focuses on Venkatanata�

�(Vedanta Desika, 1268-

1369), the brilliant Sr vaisnava polymath, master of densetheological treatises, dialectic, commentary, drama and, ashere, various modes of verse that capture the meanings andemotions underlying love for Narayana

�as Lord. This volume

translates fully the Tamil of the Nummanikkovai�

(“KovaiPoem of Three Jewels”) and Navamanimalai

�(“Garland of

Nine Jewels”), the Sanskrit of the Devanayakapañcasat(“Fifty Verses for the Lord of Gods”) andGopalavimsati

�´ (“Twenty Verses for the Cowherd”), and the

Maharastr prakrit of the Acyutasatakam (“One HundredVerses for the Unfailing One”). As a bonus, Hopkinsadds ten verses from Tirumankaiyalvar s�

�’ earlier

Periyatirumoli�

(“Great Tirumoli�

[Holy Word]”), praising thesame Devanayaka. Hopkins thus enables us to study Desi-ka’s expertise in multiple languages and styles—while focus-ing on a single divine form, since all the verses praiseNarayana

�as Devanayaka, lord of the Tiruvahındrapuram

temple. Each poem is illumined by subsequent analysis andextensive notes; a long introduction explains Hopkins’thoughts on the trade-offs necessary in effectively translat-ing Indian poetry into English. The distinctive brilliance ofDesika’s corpus leaves room for other translations reflectingby other strategies the compact rigor of Desika’s poems, butwe can only admire with gratitude this extraordinary collec-tion that charts our way forward.

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.Harvard University

THE ORIGIN OF THE INDO-IRANIANS. By Elena E.Kuz’mina; ed. by James P. Mallory; trans. by P. Prudovskyand S. Pitina. Leiden Indo-European Etymological DictionarySeries. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007. Pp. 766.$218.00.

Kuz’mina is one of Russia’s best-known archeologists,having led twenty-five expeditions and participated in overone hundred more during a career that has spanned morethan half a century. Most of these have been in the stepperegion, home to the Andronovo culture of the second millen-nia BCE, which mixed with the Indo-Europeans. With thepublication of this English language magnum opus, her voice

is now decisively added to the debate, particularly relevantin studies of ancient India, over the origin of not just theIndo-Iranians, as her title indicates, but the Indo-Europeansas well. The fact is that Western, particularly Anglophone,scholarship knows little of the results of Russian (andSoviet) scholarship, and has been building theories of cul-tural origins knowing that this is missing from their work.This has now been substantially redressed. What Kuz’minahypothesizes is that a number of genetically related tribesconsolidated around the steppes, that these tribes spoke dif-ferent dialects of Indo-European, and that for variousreasons the Iranians emerged as the most powerful and suc-cessful in the region. Kuz’mina builds her case on the evi-dence from grave culture, from burials, animal remains,ceramics and much more typically from the archaeologicalrecord. She admits that more archaeological work needs tobe done and that radiocarbon dating and dendrochronologyneed to be updated. The book contains eighteen detailedhistorical maps and 114 plates of archeological sites, gravesites, and house plans, ceramics, petroglyphs from CentralAsia, and tools. This work is indispensable for scholarsworking on the most ancient periods of Central, East, andSouth Asian history, religious and otherwise.

Frederick M. SmithUniversity of Iowa

THE BHAGAVADGITA: DOCTRINES AND CON-TEXTS. By Angelika Malinar. New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 296. $95.00.

This book shows that there is still more to say about theGıta. Malinar demonstrates how diverse ideas are woventogether to create the Gıta’s theological fabric and explainshow the text fits into its historical-cultural context. Theauthor is deeply knowledgeable about an enormous body ofprior work on both theology and context, and does justice tothe complexity of thought and argument in the Gıta, espe-cially how Samkhya Yoga

�- ideas are embedded throughout.

After surveying prior scholars’ views of the Gıta’s place inthe epic, Malinar gives a chapter-by-chapter analysis of howthe Gıta’s ideas are developed. She argues the Gıta is not aninsertion, but a layered synthesis woven closely into theepic. She focuses on its view of the role of the Hindu king(versus Brahmin, yogin, and god). Here the ideal king is therepresentative of but subordinate to Krishna, the highestlord, who is both royal creator/protector of dharma and allbeings and a detached and liberated yogin. Malinar empha-sizes Krishna’s “cosmological monotheism:” he is present in,yet beyond, the cosmos and all other, lesser gods. She alsowell explains the tension Arjuna feels between the law offamily (kula-dharma) and that of the warrior/ruler (ksatriya),to which Duryodhana unambivalently subscribes. Krishnateaches that selfless devotion to him as lord removes thisconflict and that detached action offered to him liberates.One must act, but do so disinterestedly as service to him andthe world on his behalf ( loka samgraha-

�). The author makes

many other points worth scholarly reflection. The book could

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be used in upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminarsand should be part of all research library collections.

Andrew O. FortTexas Christian University

UNDERSTANDING KARMA: IN LIGHT OF PAULRICOEUR’S PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGYAND HERMENEUTICS. By Shrinivas Tilak. 2006. NorthCharleston, SC: Book Surge Publishing, 2007. Pp. 519.$27.99.

Tilak’s ambitious and ponderous tome has a singleobjective: provide a modern hermeneutics of the popularlyunderstood (and often misunderstood) Hindu concept ofkarma. Basing his exegesis on Ricoeur’s anthropologicalnotion of homo capax (“capable man”), Tilak proffers a prag-matic (a la Aristotle’s phronesis) interpretation of karma asselfless altruistic action (ascetic activism) combined withstriving for knowledge and with lived experience to achievespiritual liberation (moksa

�). The author’s hermeneutical

strategy is predicated upon an understanding of the Vedicinstitution of yajña (sacrifice), dharma (righteous conduct),dana (charity), and tapas (ascetic exercises). He illustratesand elucidates these four actions through the teachings andstrivings of a number of nationalist thinkers and activists oflate colonial and postcolonial India including, inter alia, suchvaried figures as the enigmatic Dr. D. Kotnis and the lawyerturned fiction writer B. Gidwani of the Canadian diaspora(like the author himself). Tilak’s intellectual terrain is vastand panoramic, ranging from philosophy, theology, episte-mology, ideology, indology, modernism, and postmodernismto human rights. On this terrain he has erected an amazingpalace of wisdom with too many rooms, doors, niches, andalleys. It would take a reader with an enormous quantumof indomitable courage, dogged determination, and stoicpatience to enter it and maintain his track amidst frequenttours, detours et retours. There is, however, a reward at theend: an assured accumulation of a thesaurus meritorum—acache of good karma.

Narasingha P. SilWestern Oregon University

East AsiaTEACHING THE DAODE JING. Edited by Gary DelaneyDeAngelis and Warren G. Frisina. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2008. Pp. 206. $65.00.

The Daodejing has become a staple text in courses onAsian and East Asian intellectual history and culture at col-leges and universities. It enjoys the enviable position as oneof the truly “great books” of humanity. In this collection ofessays on pedagogical approaches for teaching the work,DeAngelis and Frisina have gathered essays by a number ofwell known scholars of Daoism such as H. Roth, L. Kohn, R.Henricks, R. Kirkland, N. Girardot, E. Wong and M. LaFar-gue. Additionally, Hans-Georg Moeller contributes an intro-

duction to the work. Other pieces in the collection are doneby nonspecialists who are active teachers of the Daodejing.Although the editors state that the target audience of thecollection is the nonspecialist, I believe that all persons whoteach the Daodejing will find many of the essays helpful andsuggestive for reflecting on their teaching of the text. Thissort of work is needed because a good deal of what passes as“letting the text of the Daodejing speak for itself” and for“open interpretation” actually results in wildly uninformedand seriously misleading constructions of classical Daoismand the masters who were the ultimate sources of the Daode-jing. A careful reader of these essays will recognize manyfruitful ways of overlapping the emphases on the importanceof Daoist practice and ritual to an understanding of the text(Roth, Wong, Girardot, and Kohn) and the employment ofserious cultural and historical critical contextualization toany well informed interpretation (Kirkland and LaFargue).

Ronnie LittlejohnBelmont University

SIX DYNASTIES CIVILIZATION. By Albert E. Dien.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Pp. 622, with398 b/w illustrations, 4 maps. $85.00.

Dien, a senior historian, here utilizes “published archeo-logical reports in mainland [Chinese] journals” to produce awide-ranging “study of the material culture of the Six Dynas-ties” period (220-589 CE). Decades of scholars have studiedthe range and sophistication of religious phenomena in thatperiod, so scholars of religion could have expected to learnmuch here. Dien does devote one chapter to “Buddhism andTaoism,” giving thirty-two pages to Buddhist data, but onlysix paragraphs to Taoism. He concedes, “This was . . . aperiod of especially active Taoist thought, and the most sig-nificant Taoist texts were written at this time.” However,“Little is said here about Taoism simply because few mate-rial relics connected with it have survived.” Actually, arthistorians like Stephen Little have demonstrated that misi-dentified Taoist artifacts abound in museum basements inAsia and the West. And numerous studies of Taoist iconog-raphy, calligraphy, painting, and stone inscriptions do notappear in Dien’s bibliography. (A superb new study by arthistorian Robert Harrist, The Landscape of Words, was pub-lished after Dien’s, but with references to pertinent earlierstudies). In sum, Dien’s exclusive attention to Chinesearcheological reports (published in government-controlledjournals, in a nation where scholarship still must conform toParty political control) uncritically follows their anti-religious biases, which also harmonize with the anti-Taoistbiases of traditional Confucian historiography. Those hopingto find here a seasoned historian integrating new insightsfrom archeological data into a comprehensive new perspec-tive on religious aspects of the “civilization” of Six DynastiesChina will be disappointed, though Dien’s meticulous expo-sition of material data is a worthwhile contribution.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

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